it’s only forty-five minutes.’
Victor was moving towards the car, but Phoebe started up the drive. ‘I’ll get an Uber or stay at someone’s.’
I ran after her, just catching sight of the love bite on her neck as she turned away. ‘Get in the car, now.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘No, I’m not. I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t have to leave early.’
With Georgia moaning like an extra in a zombie film and Victor no doubt wondering what kind of pathetically incompetent parent he’d landed as his guardian, I felt something snap. I grabbed her arm. ‘If you don’t want me to go in there and make a scene that the whole of the sixth form will still be talking about this time next year, you’ll get in the car now.’
Phoebe glared at me, disgust all over her face. ‘Oooh, you and whose army?’ But it did the trick and we were soon on our way.
I started quizzing Phoebe as we drove home. ‘How did she get so ill?’
As the ‘Dunno, lightweight probably’ came from the back of the car, in my rearview mirror, I intercepted her mouthing something to Victor, who was also signalling something I couldn’t quite catch.
When we got home, I left Patrick and Victor hauling Georgia out of the car, while I bundled Phoebe towards the house.
As I unlocked the front door, I said, ‘You’d better get straight upstairs before Dad sees your neck.’
‘Oh big deal. It’s just a hickey.’
‘It is a big deal actually.’
It was only Victor staggering into the hallway with Georgia that stopped me blowing up completely. He ran to get her a glass of water, fetching the bucket out of the back of the car, while Patrick shrank back grimacing every time she made a noise, until I snapped, ‘Just go to bed and let me sort her out.’
I helped Georgia into the shower, found her pyjamas, then Victor and I stuck her on a chair in the kitchen, where she seemed to sober up, managing to eat a piece of toast. We sat up until two. I told Victor that he didn’t have to stay, but he seemed quite happy, watching Divergent and eating the best part of a baguette. Eventually, Georgia said she was well enough to go to sleep. I put her on a camp bed in Phoebe’s room, with instructions to wake me up if she was ill again.
She looked so young as she snuggled down. It was difficult to believe those two pre-teen girls who used to practise their dance routines to ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ in my sitting room were now going out and getting completely trashed at a party.
Her last words as I walked out were, ‘Sorry, Jo. Please don’t tell my mum.’
‘Let’s talk about it in the morning.’
Victor waved goodnight to me, batting away my ‘Sorry about tonight.’ He disappeared into his room and I couldn’t help imagining him lying down, ticking off the days to when he could leave for university and live the way he wanted to, free from me flapping about, making sure he had his five-a-day and didn’t stay on the Xbox until all hours.
I nipped downstairs to double-check the front door and to get some more bread out of the freezer. I couldn’t believe how much Victor ate compared with Phoebe. The soundtrack to Ginny’s life must have been the fridge door opening and closing. Whereas mine was Phoebe endlessly pinging waistbands and sighing about how fat she looked. I wished she could see how gorgeous she was now, rather than in hindsight when the multiple-way mirrors in a John Lewis changing room were not the middle-age friend.
I went into the bathroom to clean my teeth and picked up Georgia’s microscopic skirt from the floor. A tiny plastic bag fell out with some green dried stuff in it. I stared at it, before my lumpy old brain joined the dots. I opened the package, sniffing it gingerly as though I might snort it up my nose and suddenly start cartwheeling down the landing. It had to be weed, though I’d actually never seen any in real life. No wonder she was sick. Now all those funny little eye flashes going on in the back of the car made sense – ‘Don’t let Mum know it was drugs.’
I took the bag with me and, feeling slightly guilty about disturbing Patrick’s rasp of deep sleep, I shook him awake.
I thrust the packet under his nose. Blearily he frowned. ‘I doubt that would be